I'm thinking of some questions regarding future of EBEL, it would be intersting to hear points of view on them:
1) How far geographically can the league expand? Should we expect teams from, let's say, Barcelona or there will be clubs from Central Europe only?
2) What is the maximum number of teams for near future? How stable will EBEL be with 16 or more clubs?
3) Is the league going to be less like Austrian open championship and become a truly international league?
4) Will INL merge with MOL-league to become development league for EBEL or make some sort of partnership?
5)Will the league change its name to non-sponsor one?
6) Are there any clubs from Germany that can be interested to join?
7) Can a Romanian club be competitive in EBEL? If not, what is the level gap between it and the league?
I'll try to answer some of that from my perspective.
1) Central Europe only. Travel costs would explode if the away team has to actually fly to the location. Not doable for teams like Innsbruck, Linz, Szekesfehervar, Ljubljana. I heard some rumors (don't know where anymore
) of Dunaujvaros willing to move to Budapest to join the EBEL. Perhaps Ferencvaros can step up financially? Living in Vienna, it'd be great to get some Danube-city rivalry. Furthermore, I could use the away games as an excuse to visit Budapest
.
Also, I don't see Red Bull Salzburg joining the KHL, rather Munich.
I think adding some Slovak teams would be great for the league. I think Kosice is a bit better than the EBEL-teams, but the rest is certainly within reach. Would love Trnava, Trencin or Nitra in the EBEL. Prerhaps Jesenice can come back. Add a 2nd tier Czech team for Znojmo.
2) that depends entirely on how the clubs fare financially. I think a 2 division (say SouthWest with VSV, KAC, Innsbruck, Bolzano, Salzburg, Jesenice, Ljubljana and Dornbirn and NorthEast Linz, Vienna, Znojmo, Szekesfehervar, Budapest, Graz + 2) could work. You'd have to reduce the extremes travelling-wise, so, for example, Innsbruck has to go to Hungary only once etc.
3) God I hope so.
4) No idea about that.
5) Erste Bank is pretty present in the EBEL-countries. I can imagine they offer a decent amount of money for sponsoring the league. As long as there's money to be made by selling the league's name, I frankly don't see Austrian hockey-officials moving away from it. (I think the name is an atrocity, btw
)
6) Someone like Landshut or Rosenheim perhaps (just guessing here). Don't see any DEL teams joining EBEL. Frankly, I don't have much of an idea, but I can only see teams interested that are a) playing 2nd German league and b) are located near the Austrian border (id est, some of Bavaria and certain parts of BaWü).
7) Honestly, I think there's quite a gap. Csikszereda and Brasov perhaps. The rest, absolutely not. I see the gap similar to NLA-EBEL, so quite significant.
Hope that helps.